


Excerpts From The Annals That Don't Exist

by tcwordsmith



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean gets deep, Internal Monologue
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-21 13:23:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/598237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tcwordsmith/pseuds/tcwordsmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some things just stick with ya.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Duty

_“You can’t call up the dead and say, ‘Sorry, we were looking the other way.’”_

Dean’s not real big on poetry or whatever, he’s got his classic rock and ballads are a good enough substitute. But, there was this one girl, in a town he never knew the name of, and she was way into poetry. ‘Spoken word,’ she’d corrected him, leaning across him, brushing up against him to turn up the volume just in time for Dean to catch that one line. At the time, he shook it off and got down to business, but it stuck with him. 

It’s just always felt true. Something about it sticks in his gut, makes him surer than sure that John’s always been right. This life isn’t for everyone, but it’s their duty and their job. Someone’s gotta pick up the slack where god left off. Sometimes, when he needs the extra push, he mutters it to himself, to Sammy, once to Cas. He figures it’s just a little mantra to stick in the back of his mind, the sunken hollow spot in his gut.


	2. Survival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things just stick with ya.

_“It is no sin to survive.”_

Someone’s scrawled that across the bottom of the top bunk. Carved it deep into the already scarred wood, and all Dean can think is it’s one more lie etching itself into the back of his mind. Of course it’s a sin to survive, how can it be anything but? Because he left Sam to Detroit, and Cas to falling, and Dean realizes now he’s never cleaned up any of his own messes. Only other people’s. So of course the mystery carver is wrong, of course it’s a sin to survive, of course every breath left to him will have to be in penance for wrongs he left unrighted.


	3. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things just stick with ya.

_“But you can’t make homes out of human beings; someone should have already told you that.”_

It’s a line that sticks in his head, and Dean can’t remember where it’s from exactly, because all he knows is whoever said that is wrong. So wrong. Human beings are the only home he’s ever had, and what fault of his is that? It’s not. John taught him this, built him a home of responsibility and hunting and guilt and blood and Sam. Told him to shore it up with love and need and purpose. Told him this might not be what he was born for, but this is what he’s got, and to stick with it because hunters don’t quit, they just die. 

Hunters don’t quit, they just die. So he tries to be faithful son, and big brother, and then daddymommabrotherprotectorbestfriend, and then silent for a while, and then big brother again, and somewhere along the way he realizes he’s tryin’ so hard to be everything that he’s lost sight of what he is. And he knows his dad was right, that if he stops being hunter, he’s dead, like a still shark, and he just. He can’t do it, he can’t be on all the time, and so he settles. He agrees, yes, this death is for me. And he accepts.


	4. Clarity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things just stick with ya.

_“Your heaven is someone else’s Thanksgiving”_

He can’t get it out of his head. He’s not even sure he really wants to forget; after all he likes to know where he stands with everybody. It’s why he didn’t stick around for Cassie’s pity fucking after she made it clear they weren’t on the level. It’s why he didn’t beg Sam to pick up the phone when the kid made it clear they weren’t on speaking terms. When people make shit clear to him, Dean’s fine with cutting ties. Hell, he’s the one who said it; Sam just never disagreed.

His baby brother’s idea of heaven was eating Thanksgiving dinner with another family, was eating cold pizza crusts with a stray dog, was slamming out of motel rooms and stomping down the road to spend the night at a cold bus station after fighting with Dad one of a million times. Dean’s heaven would always be everywhere Sam was, and Sam’s would always be everywhere Dean wasn’t. That’s cool, he could live with that.

It’s just nice to have it spelled out for him.


End file.
